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He gave a small nod of greeting, while the joker–faced guy grinned a grin that made him look even more like a cartoon devil.

“Hey, all,” he said. “Where the hell have you been?”

* * *

Angie stepped toward the two men like an angry mom. “Never mind where we’ve been, Razor! Why are you two fighting?”

They untangled themselves and stood, looking sheepish. Razor, the smaller, harder one, shrugged. “Well, we got bored waitin’, and everybody else around here is too weak to put up a good fight, so….”

“So you fought each other?” Vargas rolled his eyes. “You numbskulls deserve each other.”

A man in an apron stood up from behind the bar, his face red with fury. “You know these two clowns? They owe me for the furnishings.”

“Don’t worry,” said Angie. “We’ll drink enough to make it right. In fact, set us up right now. A drink for everybody, yourself included.” She shot a glance at Kate. “Uh, but a sarsaparilla for the young ‘un.”

Kate’s head came up. “I drink beer!”

Vargas chuckled. “How you going to take care of us drunk, huh?”

The girl made a face, then snorted. “Fine. But I don’t want sarsaparilla. Sarsaparilla tastes terrible. I like ginger ale.”

“Ginger ale it is, then.”

“And one plain water,” said Athalia.

Angie tossed some scrap on the bar and took the corner seat. The rest of us filled in around her while the bartender got busy filling jars and mugs with home brew, his earlier anger gone like someone had flicked a switch.

“Mighty kind of you,” he said. “Mighty kind.”

There was a moment of silence as everybody took a long slow pull, then a chorus of “Ahhhhs” as we set our mugs down. As this was the first beer this body had had in its life, I wasn’t exactly qualified to judge, but I had to say, it seemed like a pretty damned good beer to me.

“So,” said Angie after we’d all had another sip or two. “You two learn anything since you been here? Or have you just been fighting the whole time.”

The big bruiser — Thrasher, I assumed — just grunted and stared down into his beer.

Hell Razor shrugged. “We learned that the people around here are a bunch of weak–ass limp–dicks who can’t find the energy to get up out of their seats, let alone swing a fist.”

Vargas sighed. “Did you learn why?”

Hell Razor sneered in the bartender’s direction. “Our host here said it was because they were all sick. I say it’s because they’re all pussies!”

He raised his voice for that last bit and looked around hopefully, but the other patrons were still slumped in the same positions they had been when we came in. Only now they were studiously avoiding looking in our direction.

Hell Razor snorted, disgusted, and went back to his beer.

Athalia turned toward the bartender and asked the obvious question. “So why is everybody sick? What’s going on?”

“Somethin’ up at the lab,” he said. “A flu maybe? Everybody who worked up there comes down with it eventually. Been goin’ on for over a month. ‘Bout two weeks ago it got so bad, the boss collected all our security passes and told us not to come back until he could figure out a cure. We’re still waitin’, and folks are still gettin’ sicker. Dyin’ too, every now and then.”

“What lab is this?” asked Ace.

“Dr. Finster’s lab,” said the Bartender. “He’s been doin’ his experiments up there since as long as anyone can remember. Breedin’ strange animals. Makin’ cures for diseases. That kind of thing.”

Kate frowned. “But no cure for this disease?”

The bartender shook his head. “Like I said, Finster says he’s workin’ on it, but so far, nothin’. And what with his best researchers dead, I’m wonderin’ if he’ll ever find it.”

“All the researchers are dead?” I asked. That seemed strange.

“Well, we sure ain’t seen ’em since everything started. Don’t know what else to think. And they was all the folks that worked closest with him too — all the ones he trained up since they was babies. Really seems to have taken it out of the old man, them dyin’. He ain’t left the lab since he closed it. Doesn’t talk to no–one except through the PA system, and then all he says is stay away.”

Everybody looked at each other. Even Hell Razor and Thrasher seemed interested. They paused in their drinking for nearly twenty seconds.

Kate cleared her throat. “So, what are the symptoms of this flu?”

The bartender shook his head. “It’s really odd. Starts off with the victims getting all red–faced and delirious.” He motioned around at the other patrons. “Then it’s pretty much what you see. They’re tired all the time, vomiting and shivering, maybe the screaming shits. Folks that’ve had it the longest tend to lose their appetite and sometimes their hair, then sometimes they die. It’s made a ghost town out of Darwin, even though most everybody’s still alive.”

“So,” asked Vargas. “What kinda work did the people do up there? The, uh, non–researchers, I mean.”

A voice came from the back of the room. “You all are some nosy motherfuckers.”

Another voice joined the first. “Yeah. What the hell do you want to know all this stuff for?”

The bartender got a frightened look on his face. “Come on, Metal, don’t start nothin’. And keep a leash on Mad Dog. These folks are already crazy enough to fight themselves if there’s no–one else handy. Don’t go gettin’ ’em riled up.”

Me and the others turned. Two men, one big and paunchy, the other smaller and wild–eyed, were leaning in a doorway that led to a back room. The big one had long greasy hair and wore a ragged black t–shirt with the words Quiet Riot printed on it in spiky letters, so maybe he was Metal. The smaller one wore a dirty dress shirt and black leather gloves and twitched when he talked, so maybe he was Mad Dog. They certainly both looked as sick as dogs.

Hell Razor jumped up from his stool. “We wanna know ‘cause we wanna know. You got a problem with that?”

The two men looked him up and down, sneering, but then Metal shook his head. “On one of my good days I shit bigger than you, sonny. But I ain’t been havin’ so many good days lately.”

Mad Dog nodded in agreement. “Ain’t felt like gettin’ in a fight for months. My gut ain’t right.”

Angie elbowed Hell Razor back to his stool and stepped forward. “And maybe we’re askin’ ‘cause we’re lookin’ to find a cure for what’s ailin’ you.”

The two men laughed, but their laughter quickly turned into coughing fits, and they were both doubled up in the door, red–faced and weaving.

Metal recovered first. “How’s a bunch of gunslingers like you gonna find a cure when old Doc Finster can’t find one?”

“Yeah,” said Mad Dog. There was blood on his lips. “He’s the smartest man in the world. You ain’t but raiders with badges. What do you know?”

“I know I’d rather try something than just sit around waiting to die,” said Athalia.

I stood. “Answer the man’s question. What did everybody do up there?”

The two men looked like they wanted to sass me, but then they looked too tired.

“Mostly farm–type work,” said Metal. “Tendin’ Finster’s weird animals — feedin’ ’em, breedin’ em’, makin’ sure the litters didn’t die.”

“We grew his weird plants too,” said Mad Dog. “Fruits and veggies that only the weird animals can eat. Stuff that would make normal animals sick to eat it.”

Kate perked up at that. “And do you ever eat those plants?”